+ Sponsors

Monday, 22 May 2017

Look Up

On Sunday I posted all of your comments to Friday's Teaching in Real Time post, which contained many good "how-to" book recommendations. This morning I heard from the reader who sent me the original question, Peter F., who says "thank you all for these suggestions. The generosity of TOP's brain trust/readership is a special thing."

A couple of thoughts about a comment or two. First, Frank Petronio recommended a book by Arthur Elgort. Arthur Elgort is a very experienced and highly accomplished NYC-based fashion photographer who got his big break from Mademoiselle magazine and became known for his work for Vogue. He was an important figure in the shift from classical fashion photography to a looser, more free, more "snapshot"-influenced style in the 1970s and '80s.

We give short shrift to model photography around here—for some unknown reason, despite my deliberate attempt to explore photography by trying out a wide variety of styles and ways of shooting over the years, I've never photographed a model. Anyway, Frank does shoot models, and he recommended Arthur's book Models Manual. He quipped, "Models Manual is probably the one fashion photography book that grumpy old bearded men should own. It's great!" I haven't seen it, but if you're interested in fashion and beauty photography you might want to see if you can find one. Amazon has a few, and if they're out you could check eBay or the online consortium of used booksellers, Abebooks.com.

If anyone has a recommendation of a how-to book about shooting models and fashion that's in print currently, let me know.

Things we take for grantedSecond, Michael Matthew said something I think deserves underlining. Commenting on the "Weekend Reading: G. Steidl" post, he wrote, "Wonderful sky shot. Too few people look up."

You would think that among photographers this might go without saying, yet it's probably one of those assumptions that ought to be voiced every so often. When I was 13, I went to Summer camp in Montana. We spent three weeks in camp and went on three week-long camping trips, and during all six weeks we went on numerous hikes in the mountains. The counselors taught us that when walking in the woods we should look down only every third step—or, on rocky trails where the footing was treacherous, look up every third step. They said it was how woodland Indians walked in the woods, which was probably bullsh*t. They would even correct us when they caught us walking along staring at our feet or the path in front of us. I got scolded several times for looking down, got into the habit of looking up, and have remembered the advice and followed the practice ever since.

It takes an effort to look up; it takes an effort to look around. You have to move your head. You have to get used to lifting your eyes. Seeing does involve looking, and while we assume that looking around is something that comes naturally, it isn't. We assume everyone does it, but that's not so. Most of the time people are looking only at what they need to see or not even paying attention.

Thanks to Michael for mentioning it. It's a good thing to remember.

Mike(Thanks to Frank and Michael)

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)Featured Comments from:

Dennis Mook: "Ask any police officer or deputy where he or she is looking while patrolling. The answer should be 'everywhere.' As a police chief, I was never hard on my officers when they would have minor vehicle accidents, as I expected them to look, not only where they were driving, but everywhere else as well, including up. If they weren't, they weren't doing their job.

"When I was a young patrol officer 43 years ago, there was only you and the two-way radio in the vehicle. Then they started putting in AM-FM radios. Then came officers wearing pagers. Then came mobile phones. All distractions from paying attention to 'everywhere.' Distractions. Funny thing about being taught to look everywhere. It has translated nicely in to keen observation for my photography as well. Often, when walking or traveling with others, I see many things they never see. Old habits die hard."

Brian Taylor: "No, no, no. At least not if you've got dodgy feet/knees/hips and live in an area with steep hillsides, occasional sheer drops, uneven paths, boggy areas, random holes, and slippery mud. Nowadays my health and safety protocol stipulates that I never look up while walking along, and always stop before looking up, or around—with or without a camera."

Mike replies: The late Alan Watts had a fake Latinism he used in footnotes: "mod. auct.," which he claimed meant something like "modus auctorus" (perhaps a Latin scholar can correct that)—anyway, according to him it meant "modified by author." Always seemed to me like a good general rule for, um, well, rules—modify 'em to suit yourself. I'm sure you know best!

Richard Parkin: "Looking up is also rewarding in cities."

hugh crawford: "Looking up and down is good advice, but if you don't turn around and look back you are missing half of your surroundings. Also, if you are walking in NYC, remember that NYC pedestrian traffic is somewhat reminiscent of NASCAR and avoid sudden changes in velocity or direction. Locals will give anyone holding a camera a wide berth but tourists will crash right into you."

Comments

Yes indeed.
Looking up and around also includes looking at people as a matter of course. But if you really notice it, it's stunningly rare (except in Italy). It's so rare that if you just happen to be doing it, you may often be regarded suspiciously, like maybe you're a 'perv' or such.
Like so many things, it's based on fear, both the fear of looking and the fear of being looked at.

When I was a gormless teenager at math camp -- yes, there was such a thing -- our teacher was Professor J. Harvey Butchart, not only crack mathematician at Northern Arizona University but also a hardened explorer of the nearby Grand Canyon. One day he took a few of us down a little used trail (he estimated 2-3 people took it per year) from the South Rim to the river at the bottom, 24 miles round trip in a day. Wonderful! About halfway down I realized that I had been so concentrated on the barely perceptible path that I had seen little of the canyon, so I looked up and wham! walked straight into a prickly pear cactus, embedding several spines in my right foot through the canvas of my tennis shoe. So I had to walk the rest of the way down, and all the way back, with those spines in my foot (couldn't get them out till I had tweezers etc).

The view was nice ...

By the way: J Harvey was great. When he said in passing that he had rafted down the canyon on a rubber mattress, I asked him how that went. He said he got too wet, so the next time he did it he strapped two rubber mattresses together.

I have spent a lot of time in the Rocky Mountain West. Due to the vast distances and mountains which serve as the "frame", there the sky certainly does look amazing and dramatic. "Big Sky" country. My home is in Ann Arbor which is a population center in the middle of a flat midwestern landscape. For years I didn't pay much attention to the sky especially during my daily commute through the SE Michigan suburbs. Then one day, in an effort at mindfulness, I began to focus on the sky during my walks and commute, and, there it was--most of the time just as amazing as out west. Sometimes you just don't notice what is right in front of you as the familiar becomes banal. But, a lot of it has to do with the "frame". The Finger Lakes are a great frame.

The sky is so big that it's difficult to capture its drama and grandeur in a photograph. If it was anything else you would step back to get it all in or buy a wider lens or frame it with some buildings or trees but that doesn't work with the sky.

This reminds me the Jay Meisel story he tells during the "Light Color Gesture" seminar. He spent years photographing sunsets, following the sun as it dropped below the horizon. That is until the day he turned around and realized the beauty of a sunset is often behind you.

Jay and Stephen Wilkes are giving a free 2 hour seminar at the School of Visual Arts in New York City next Wednesday night, I believe it starts at 7:00 pm.